


Hunter

by Syri



Category: Cain Saga and Godchild
Genre: Gen, Religious Themes, series typical child abuse, series typical issues with food, series typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 08:38:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13142991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Syri/pseuds/Syri
Summary: At 16, Jezabel can no longer reign in his growing bloodlust, and takes his first planned and plotted kill





	Hunter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ephona-jizabel](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ephona-jizabel).



Biting December wind sliced through the layers of Jezabel's coats and jackets and woolen shirts, but he barely knew it. His mind held no fears of a winter-caught flu or frostbite. Indeed he barely felt the chill, not when he was so very warm on the inside, much like the corpse of Mr. Frederick Milton. Mr Milton, Jezabel assumed, also did not mind the cold, no more than he minded the scalpel in his belly that sliced him apart from sternum to groin.

It was beautiful. The wound opened with no resistance at Jezabel's still-learning hand, a well of blood flowing out just behind the blade and spilling over the mans pale skin, flowing with the slightest touch down to stain his shredded shirt and jacket. Jezabel could hardly wait to touch, but at the same time, he wanted to savor this. After all, he had been planning this for 5 years now, both consciously in his waking mind, and in his night time dreams. Five years since he first discovered the heat and softness and love people contained in their bellies, five years he had struggled to shove away the memories of that delight, drown it out with his studies and his prayers and Bible. Murder, after all, was a capital sin, a mortal sin, one of the worst offenses one man could commit upon another. Father said so, often. Jezabel didn't know if father knew by whos hand that man had died that night, but considering the lectures he often gave, it was likely. Night after night he sat quietly at the dining room table with Father, as Alexis opened his own bible to read out loud and to lecture his son on the word of God. Slaughter, sacrifice, God's wrath upon the world, the good book was a document of massacre, and Jezabel silently delighted in those stories, only to throw himself onto his knees before bed and pray that the lord might take from him these longings.

Now, at 16, he couldn't handle it anymore, not with such a storm brewing within him. As of late he had found himself in quite a difficult temper. Where he was once dutiful and obedient, eager to be father's good boy, the last few months had found him throwing a great many tantrums, the likes of which hadn't been seen since his childhood. He didn't WANT to wake so early for bible study, he was tired and wanted to sleep longer. He didn't WANT to eat the menu put before him for each meal and, indeed, had begun refusing meat altogether, living off of potatoes, milk, bread, butter and the canned preserves from the garden. Well, when he could stomach food at all, that was. Often he was so stressed or so busy that he forgot to eat at all, a habit that was showing in the ribs on his chest and the bones along his back. Any unwanted correction from his father was no longer met with compliance, but with whining and a refusal to be told what to do, often rounded off with some screaming, throwing things, slamming doors or, once, slapping his father clean across the face.

That one landed him 3 days in the hospital, a concussion, and 21 stitches. He deserved it, of course. With such a foul temper these days and a rotten disposition, he deserved it and so much more. And so, he found himself stalking the streets of his home city that night, making good on years old fantasies. An easy prey, not terribly old, but slow from drink. He didn't look like he'd be missed, and who would suspect a well bred, wealthy adopted teenager of such barbarism? Besides, should anyone come knocking, Alexis would protect him. He was always safe in father's arms, even though he did not deserve it.

For two hours, Jezabel stayed there upon his knees, longer than he had ever spent genuflecting in prayer. Lathing blood up his wrists, trailing the thin, clinging webs of viscera and connective tissue over his fingers. How a fresh corpse was so much prettier than days old cadavers in the anatomy lab! Lungs, heart, still fresh, looking as though they still longed to pump and to beat and to push blood into a living body. Now Jezabel was the only thing moving blood. He stayed until the warmth and blood had all drained away, leaving behind a chilled corpse begging to freeze along the fingers, toes and ears. What a pity. 

With shaky legs, Jezabel stood, rubies dripping from the end of his fingertips, drying across his face. That was fine, he had a plan. Still oblivious to the cold, he shrugged off the jacket he wore- not his own, of course, but one stolen from some lowly stable boy father employed- and used the clean back to scrub the blood off his face, checking his reflection in a small pocket mirror that still smelled like his mother's talcum powder. Cheeks scrubbed pink, glistening violet eyes, blonde hair free of blood; perfect. Quickly he tossed the ruined coat aside and slipped on his own, kept carefully way from the mess, and left body and clothing where it lay.

He felt sure that he flew the whole way home. Down the lamp lit streets, staying to the shadows as much he could, till he arrived at the huge corner townhouse that his father owned-not rented- and skittered to the back where a trellis held ivy in the summer. Now it was only dead leaves crunching beneath his hands as he climbed back up to his bedroom window and, panting from exertion and joy, clambered into his room and latched the door behind him.

"Welcome home, child."

All the warmth he had sopped up from his first intentional kill leeked from his every pore as his fathers quiet voice called out from behind him. Hands still on the curtains after snapping them shut, he wrenched his head around to look, hoping this was just another of his hallucinations, fueled by tiredness and lack of proper food.

"Da...father!" he gasped out, hands fisting tightly in his velvet drapes. "I...what are you...?"

Alexis sat casually at Jezabel's desk, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his piper drifitng up coils of pale smoke. He had lit the fire in Jezabel's hearth, and the light bounced off hsi glasses like hellfire.

"I came to check on you, little boy, and found you were not in your bed," he said matter of factly, hands folded primly in his lap. "I, of course, was worried about you but figured you were just having another one of your /fits/ again and would return soon."

Jezabel had no words to give his father as the older man surveyed him silently, and then beckoned him forward. The boy did not want to move. The 2 meters or so between them was his only protection, his sanctuary from a beating or a spanking or whatever other punishment Alexis might dole out. Still, he had no choice, and his footsteps were slow and cautious as he approached. Even sitting, Alexis was nearly as tall as him; a growth spurt over the summer had raised Jezabel to about 170 centimeters but he doubted he would grow as tall as father; he was taking after his mother in every other physical way that a boy could, after all, and despite this body of his begging to fill out into a man's, he felt so, so small next to his father. Even solidly into his forties now, Alexis was handsome, powerful, and always seemed barely contained behind his calculating eyes.

"Where were you?" was all he asked, and Jezabel could think of no words to fill the silence.

"I asked you a question, child. Where were you?"

"A walk," was all Jezabel could respond with lamely. He knew he couldn't outright lie to his father; he knew. He ALWAYS knew when Jezabel offered him falsehoods upon his lips, and lying always earned a belt to his thighs.

"Where to?" Alexis wanted to know, and Jezabel told him he merely went down along to the park, to see if the ponds had frozen over yet. It was a poor story, and he knew his father didn't believe it. Quick as a viper, Alexis struck his hand out, snatching Jezabel's own by the wrist.

"Hey-!" Jezabel cried out, the lurching throwing him off balance, but Alexis paid his protests no mind. Closely he examined the boys hands and, more importantly, the nails, and instantly Jezabel knew he was fucked. The blood hadn't even had time to dry down and become brown yet.

"Hm. Too late in the season to be strawberry picking, isn't it?" he said grimly, and with his free hand he reached into his coat pocket and drew out a pocket knife, flicking it open with ease. Jezabel was tense and grew as still as he could as Alexis brought the knife to his sons hand, easing the tip of the wicked blade beneath each of his fingernails and carefully cleaning out the blood. "What a wicked thing you have grown to be," he accused. "Mouthing off to your father, sneaking out, throwing tantrums...how many of the Lords commandments do you intend to break, little boy?"

"I...I did nothing," Jezabel tried desperately to defend, but Alexis was having none of it.

"I don't believe you. I know what you're like, I see how your eyes grow hungry in the cadaver lab, I see how you get the best marks in human anatomy. You're studying physiology at a university level yet your mathematics are on the lower end for your age. That's unacceptable. And telling. So who was it?"

Jezabel again chose to not answer; he was too tense watching his father finish cleaning each of his nails, still as a statue with the blade under each. When he finished the last one on his right hand, he breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short lived. Alexis held his hand firmly, turning it palm-up and pressed the tip of the knife to the tip of his forefinger.

"Ouch!" Jezabel gasped, trying to pull his hand away, but Alexis held him firm, and did the same to his middle finger next, deeper this time.

"Father, stop-! That hurts!" he gasped out, tears biting into his eyes.

"As a punishment should, Jezabel," he said far too lightly. The next finger was given the same quick treatment. "A wicked thing like you ought to become use to pain, since you're turning your back further and further away from salvation."

He released Jezabels hand only to reach for the other, popping him quick across hsi face when he tried to hide it.

"If this is the path you are choosing, Jezabel, so be it. I have done what I can to save you, protect you, but you refuse my love as much as you do our Lord's. At the very least your lack of moral fortitude can be useful.

Had he not been crying from the sharp pain of each slice, Jezabel, in his new rebellion, might have spat about the lives father has taken, with his own hands or with his words, or the rape of his sister, but he knew it would have done no good. Alexis, somehow, was above the laws of God; to Jezabel, he was God himself, even, and was flawless, when he was not the devil. 

"Father, please! I'm sorry!" he tried to cry out as Alexis pressed the blade into his last finger, his thumb, nearly going down to the bone. 

"You aren't," Alexis argued lightly, flicking the blade closed,still stained with the blood of two men. "And that is the problem, boy. If you aren't sorry for being a disobedient son, you can hardly be sorry for cold blooded murder. You will rise at dawn tomorrow, and be dressed and downstairs waiting for study by 7. You will not be fed tomorrow. You will spend the day on your maths and i expect perfect answers. Come to me in the evening; if this is how you spend your time, I have a job for you that will...excite you."

Before he released his boy, he pulled him near again, laying a soft kiss to his brown, beneath light layers of blonde curls quickly starting to grey; already at 16 he had as many strands as his father, 25 years his senior. Soft footsteps caried Alexis away, and a sharp slam to his door put a barrier between them. It was an imperfect one, though; Jezabel was not allowed to lock his door.

Shaking and bloodied, Jezabel stood still for a moment, before lowering himself slowly to his knees, cradling his sore, tender hands. The pain throbbed with each heartbeat and, despite the fire, he felt the sweat cooling his skin uncomfortably quick. Still, he dried his tears, his terror forgotten. Father had left him with a kiss and the promise of work; his God had forgiven him.


End file.
